Over 200 Nurses Employed In The Health Sector

Government has secured clearance for the recruitment of over 200 nurses and health professionals, according to the Minister of Health Kwaku Agyeman Manu.

This adds up to the over 16,000 nurses already admitted into the health sector.

“So far this year, we have employed just about sixteen thousand of these nurses who were sitting home. In the course of this week, we got financial clearance to add two hundred and thirty-six more,” he said.

In a bid to help nurses who were trained in private health institutions, the Minister confirmed that a request had been sent to the Ministry of Finance for financial clearance.

“We have [sent a] request to Finance to enable us also recruit some of those sitting at home who did their training in private schools, and God willing if we get that one in the course of the next months left for the year to end, we will continue to recruit them,” he noted.

Speaking to Citi News, Kwaku Agyeman Manu said provisions have been made in the next budget for the recruitment of trainees from private nursing schools.

“If we are not able to do that, come next year we have done adequate budgetary allocations, all of them will come on board,” the Minister of Health explained.

Quota system to limit unemployed nurses
The government's introduction of a quota admission system for nursing trainee schools, was to help improve the quality of nurses in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry believes this will allow training institutions to produce nurses to meet the demands of the health sector, thus reducing unemployment.

Speaking to Citi News on the new development, the Public Relations Officer of the Health Ministry, Robert Cudjoe, explained the impact the quota system will have on the nursing training schools.

“Some schools that were taking less last year are taking more, and some that were taking more are now taking less, simply because we did an analysis and came to the conclusion that some schools don't have the facilities to admit the number that they have been recruiting and that is compromising quality,” he said.

–
By: Ann-Shirley Ziwu/citifmonline.com/Ghana.